The next morning, I'd called my father. I didn't have the emotional energy the night before. Bill and I had fallen asleep entwined together. It felt like we were each other's only anchor in an increasingly tempestuous ocean. I tried not to think about what this meant. For now, we just needed each other, and I wasn't going to try to rationalize things too much.
Dad picked up immediately and said it was good to hear my voice. He was far from a demonstrative man, but the timbre of his speech told me everything about the anguish he had obviously been going through. Aside from checking on my health, mental and physical, he said he didn't want to speak in much detail on the phone. We arranged to meet later.
When I'd explained about Bill's two colleagues, the guilt had risen so quickly in me that it felt physical. I thought that I might pass out yet again. I told myself that I'd spent too long unconscious in the last three weeks; Dad had mentioned a date and I'd figured out a time line from that. He finished the call by saying he loved me, not a phrase that often passed his lips. I said the same.
Wiping away the beginnings of tears, I went to find Bill, he was sitting on the edge of the couch, head in hands, his phone on the floor in front of him. He raised his bloodshot eyes to me. "You get your father?"
I nodded. "Any update on Mancini?"
Bill took a deep breath and straightened up. "She was in the OR until 2am. She's still unconscious, but they are positive about her chances. A passer by called 911 and the paramedics got there quick. She took a headshot, but they are hopeful that any brain damage will be minor. Her husband is with her. They said I could visit around midday, but not to expect her to be awake."
Bill gulped, struggling to speak. "What the fuck do you think happened, Hope? Cops don't just get randomly shot, not round here. The last active shooter was the one Maria took out, and that was eight months ago."
I had my own ideas, but wasn't sure that I wanted to share them fully. However, I felt I owed Bill something. "I don't know. It could... it could be about... about me. I mean this shit I'm caught up in."
He looked at me, and I could tell he had questions, questions I didn't feel I could deal with now. I don't know if it was avoidance on my part, or my own needs, or empathy for his hurt, probably all three, but I went and held Bill. He buried his face in my shoulder, but I raised him up by the chin. "Don't cry, don't cry." I kissed him. I kissed him and my hurt receded just a little. It felt better, like a respite from pain.
Our intimacy from yesterday came rushing back, for him as much as me. But then, as I began to pull his T shirt off, Bill held me at arms length. "Hope, what the fuck is this? I mean... I mean it's wonderful, you're wonderful... but..."
"But what, Bill?"
His face creased in concern. "But lots, like Maria in the hospital, Raoul in the morgue, and... and..."
He clearly had something major on his mind, I had some idea what. "Just say it, Bill."
"The doctor, the doctor who checked you over. He said... oh fuck... he said there was maybe signs of... signs of..." He couldn't continue.
"I know. And we can talk about it. But later. I'm not crazy, I'm not catatonic. I know what I need. And... and I think you need it too." I finished with a look of both inquiry and pleading.
Seeing him falter, I thought actions spoke louder, and kissed him again. Kissed him fiercely, parting his lips with my tongue. And his restraint fell away, his need for human contact greater than anything else. I understood, we had a connection, a connection forged in shared damage. Damage that could be salved in only one way that I knew of.
We undressed each other urgently, focused on our passion. Craving it subduing other feelings, chasing them away. Wanting normality, wanting to forget. I pushed Bill back on the couch and he wordlessly accommodated me between his legs. I accommodated him too, reveling in the taste of him, the sensation of him against my tongue and cheeks, the sounds of his rising stimulation. To give pleasure and to expect reciprocation, it felt almost blessed, a purification, a benediction.
But my own emotions were also surging, and I knew what I needed. I knelt up and forward, kissing Bill. "Listen, just trust me. I need to be fucked. I need to be fucked really hard. On all fours. Don't ask questions, please. Just do it. Do it for me."
Consternation rippled across his features. "Please, Bill." I could see an internal battle between concern and desire play out in his troubled face. And, with gratitude, I could see the latter win.
"OK, Hope. But promise me we'll talk."
"Yes. But later. Now..."
I got onto the couch and buried my face in the leather, raising my ass up ready. I closed my eyes and told myself it was OK, I was OK. The couch moved as Bill got behind me. I felt his hands on me. Just one more nod to normalcy. "A condom... did you?" Of course he had, I felt shitty for asking.
But then, just as I wanted, my thoughts were occupied by other things. With the frisson of being entered, parted, slid into. My world became his hands on my waist, his body inside me, his thighs colliding with me. And it was enough. And with each inward thrust, I yelled for him to do it harder, to use me, to fuck me like he'd never fucked any woman before.
As he rammed himself into me again and again, my body did what it should, and I felt like crying. I could now also hear Bill sobbing as he pounded me. As he too sublimated his mental angst into the physical. As he poured his grief -- new and old -- into a receptacle he knew could take it, who needed it as much as he. "Harder! I want it harder! Oh God, yes!"
My first orgasm was quick, yet so powerful. Its waves thundered through me, crashing past my conscious thoughts, flooding my very being with warm, healing torrents. And before the first inundation had receded, the second tsunami was upon me. It hit me while I still yelled 'harder,' while he too let go, and as I felt his body become rigid and release his own flood, as his wordless roar filled my ears.
A lengthy, trembling pause, then we twisted and turned and rearranged, our shaking, breathless bodies intertwined, mimicking the codependency of our traumatized psyches. Holding, stroking, needing each other, as our tears fell.
